Secrets She Kept

by Debra Webb

  “Someone else was paying attention, too, and that’s why he was set up. There has to be someone on the inside.”

  “At what level?” She skimmed her fingertip down a list of agencies and names. “The Falcon was on that track, also.”

  “Walid’s group, which doesn’t even have a name, is dependent on this insider and they’re desperate to keep him a secret.”

  “Then we need to pretend we know who this insider is and that we have the proof to bring him down—and we’ll do it unless we get Drake back.”

  “That won’t work, Sue. We can’t offer the people who took Drake any insurance that we didn’t pass along this info to someone before we collect Drake, or any assurance that we didn’t take pictures of the proof with our phones.” He rubbed a circle on her back. “The only thing we have as a bargaining chip—is you.”

  Sue folded her arms and buried her face in the crook of her elbow. “Then it has to be done. My life for Drake’s. It’s a no-brainer.”

  “It’s a no-brainer that you’re going to show up, but I’ll figure out a way to get you both out alive.” He put his head close to hers and his warm breath stirred her hair. “I found you again and discovered we have a son together. Do you seriously think I’m going to let anything come between me and everything I ever wanted?”

  She raised her head and kissed his chin. “How did I ever let myself get talked into leaving you and keeping Drake from you?”

  Tapping the notebook with his knuckle, he said, “This is how. The work. Your work.”

  “And where has that work gotten me? Estranged from you, Drake kidnapped, my career and my very life in jeopardy.”

  “Make it worthwhile.”

  “You mean instead of wallowing in self-pity?” She picked up the pen and resumed her examination of The Falcon’s notes.

  “I know what your problem is, and it’s not self-pity.” He stood up and made a move toward the kitchen. “You need to eat something. You never finished that awful oatmeal. I’ll make us something else awful.”

  While Hunter banged around in the kitchen, Sue put together a time line of all the events that linked Major Denver with their undercover work with Walid. “It’s here. This is it, Hunter. Walid’s group is the same one Denver has been tracking and the same one The Falcon had me infiltrate. But for what purpose?”

  “What purpose?” He walked toward her carrying two bowls of something steaming.

  She sniffed the air. “Chicken noodle soup? Drake loves noodles.”

  “Must be genetic. This stuff is homemade, straight from the can.” He set the soup at her elbow, a spoon already poking up from the bowl. “What purpose are you talking about?”

  “The connection between Denver’s investigation and the one I was doing with The Falcon is evident, but I don’t know why either investigation is so important. This group—” she thumbed through the pages “—really hasn’t been up to much of anything. Outside of the Syrian bombing and another in Paris, the group has been operating under the radar.”

  “Denver seems to think they’re plotting something big, and obviously The Falcon thought so, too.”

  “In the US.” Hunter blew on his soup before sucking a noodle into his mouth. “Yeah, I know that.”

  She shifted her gaze from Hunter’s lips and glanced down at the page in front of her. “The Falcon does have GB several times on the page. Could there be an impending attack in Great Britain, also? It just doesn’t make sense in the context of her notes, which really couldn’t be more confusing if she tried.”

  “GB?” Hunter dropped his spoon and snatched the notes from her hand. “That’s what the military calls sarin gas.”

  Sue choked. “My God, Hunter. That’s it. A weapon in the context of these notes makes so much more sense than a place. They’re planning a sarin attack. But where?”

  She scrambled through The Falcon’s notes again, drawing a blank. Slumping in her chair, she dropped the notes onto the table. “Do you think these are enough to clear me with the CIA? There are references to the people I met and why. The Agency can’t accuse me of collaborating with the enemy once they see The Falcon’s notes. Someone has to come forward at some point to claim The Falcon. She didn’t work in a vacuum.”

  “They’ll go a long way toward proving your innocence.”

  “Then maybe I should turn myself in now. Maybe they can help us get Drake back.”

  “That would be the worst thing we could do for Drake right now. If there’s an insider, and these notes—” he smashed his fist against the papers “—indicate there is, how long do you think it’s gonna take him, or her, to report back that the Agency is aware of the kidnapping?”

  “Not long at all.” She plowed her fingers through her hair and dug her nails into her scalp.

  Her cell phone rang and she froze.

  Hunter picked up the phone and checked the display. “It’s your father.”

  Sue lunged for the phone. “Dad?”

  “I couldn’t find her, Sue. I don’t know where she took him, but he’s gone.”

  “We’ll handle it, Dad. I’ll get Drake back.”

  “At what cost?”

  “Whatever it takes.”

  When her conversation with her father ended, Sue finally picked up her spoon and took a few sips of soup. She’d hoped that The Falcon’s notes would contain a blueprint to clear her, clear Denver, give her something to use to bargain with Drake’s kidnappers, ID the mole and map out the plan for Walid’s attack. It only hinted at some of those things, leaving the rest just out of her grasp.

  She cared only about Drake now. His safety was more important than all the rest. It always was and she hadn’t been able to see that until now.

  Her phone rang again, and when she looked at the calling number, she inhaled her soup so fast it went up her nose. “It must be Dani.”

  She put it on speaker and answered. “Yes?”

  Dani answered, a slight accent creeping into her voice that Sue had never noticed before. “Are you ready?”

  “I’m ready for anything.”

  “You’d better be.” Dani spoke away from the phone in a muffled voice and then continued. “We’re going to pick you up on a street corner in DC at midnight tonight. If anyone follows us or we see any police presence, helicopters, drones or any other suspicious activity, your son will disappear.”

  “Are you bringing him with you when you pick me up? How will I know he’s safe?”

  “We’ll let you video chat with him on the phone before we pick you up. We’ll even let you see him before...before we take you away for interrogation.”

  Hunter jumped up from the table, his hands clenched into fists.

  Sue met his gaze. “How do I know you’ll let him go once you have me?”

  “You’ll just have to trust us. We’re working out a plan for your father to pick the boy up.”

  “I need more than that.” Hot anger thumped through her veins and she pressed two fingers against her throbbing temple.

  “What choice do you have, Sue? Are you going to be at the meeting place tonight or not?”

  Hunter came up behind her and stroked the side of her neck.

  Sue took a deep breath and swallowed. “Of course I’ll be there. Give me the instructions.”

  As Dani reeled off the steps, Sue wrote them down on a piece of paper. When the call ended, she dropped her head to that paper and banged her head on the table. “What are we going to do? There’s no way to find out where they’re going to take me. You can’t follow us. She already said they’re going to divest me of any cell phones, purses, bags, and they’re even leaving clothes for me to change into so I can’t sew anything into my clothing. And I don’t even know if Drake will be safe at the end of this. They might kill us both.”

  Hunter braced his hands on the table, his head drooping between his
arms. “That’s not going to...”

  His head jerked up. “Where’s the bag from the floor with all the cash?”

  “By the fireplace.” She jerked her thumb over her shoulder. “Why?”

  Crossing to the fireplace in three long strides, he said over his shoulder, “The Falcon had every conceivable spy tool in that storage unit. She also had some in that bag.”

  “GPS tracker? They’ll find it, Hunter.”

  He knelt before the bag and dived into it, dragging out stacks of money and throwing them over his shoulder. His hands scrabbled through the items in the bottom of the bag, and then he sat back on his heels, with a smile that showed all his white teeth.

  “Got it. God bless The Falcon.”

  “What do you have?” Sue sprang up from her chair like a jack-in-the-box and launched herself at him.

  He waved the package in front of her nose. “You’re going to swallow the GPS.”

  Chapter 19

  Hunter tugged his hat lower on his forehead as he watched Sue across the street in her ill-fitting jeans and baggy T-shirt. She still looked incredible, regal even, as she awaited her fate—and Drake’s.

  They’d made the four-hour drive back to DC that afternoon and had lain low in a chain hotel outside the capital until it was time to leave. They’d come separately, he in a disguise, so nobody would make the link between him and Sue.

  She’d followed their instructions to the T, picking up a bag at the front desk of the specified hotel, changing into the clothing in the bag, stashing her own clothes, along with any personal items, in the bag and checking it back in with the bellhop.

  Now she waited on that corner with no guarantee that her sacrifice would spare Drake. He was her guarantee. He finally had the family he’d dreamed of having and he wasn’t going to let it—or them—slip out of his grasp so easily.

  He brought up the GPS app on his phone and entered the code for the tracker in Sue’s belly. She appeared as a stationary green dot.

  Sensing movement, Hunter shifted his gaze from his phone to the street. A blue van pulled up alongside Sue and she hopped in. Just like that, she disappeared from his sight, and a wave of panic clutched at his innards for a few seconds until he got his bearings.

  They could search her all they wanted; they’d never find the tracker. But he—and they—had to act quickly. It was good for only a few hours, and he couldn’t be seen following the van.

  He swallowed the fear bubbling up from his gut and paid for his coffee and apple pie. He hobbled out of the twenty-four-hour café and made a sharp turn toward the parking garage where he’d left the car borrowed from Sue’s friend.

  Nobody knew that car. Nobody knew the bearded man in the Nationals cap with the slight paunch and the stiff leg. He limped toward the elevator, passing a few tourists out on the town, maybe going to their nighttime monuments tour.

  When he got behind the wheel of the car, he checked his phone again. Sue and the van were headed out of the city, south toward Virginia.

  He followed their path. At this rate, he’d be pulling in to the destination ten minutes after they did. If her captors acted quickly and whisked her or Drake away as soon as they got there, he didn’t stand a chance. They didn’t even know if Drake would be waiting at the location. He might be somewhere else completely.

  He pounded his hands against the steering wheel. He couldn’t let himself think that way. He had to be Delta Force right now. He had to remove the personal feelings from this mission and focus on the objective. Rescue the targets and kill the enemy, if necessary.

  With his phone propped up on the dashboard, he followed the green bull’s-eye. Forty-five minutes passed before the van made a move off the highway. Hunter checked the map and saw farmland. A rural area would expose him, but it would expose them, too.

  And he had all the gear he needed to conduct a raid—Delta Force–style.

  When the target stopped moving, Hunter caught his breath. He was eight minutes out. As he continued to drive, he pulled up another map on his phone and switched to a street-view image. The location of the green dot matched up to what looked like a barn of some sort.

  His mind clicked into action. A barn—high ceilings, wooden structure, possible fire hazard, maybe a hayloft, horse stalls. Places for concealment.

  He parked his car a half mile out, hiding it behind a clump of bushes. He secured his backpack, the weight of his equipment solid on his shoulders. He stumbled onto a dirt access road—no trees or cover-up to the structure, but high grass, high enough to conceal a man in a crouching position.

  He waded into the grass, hunching forward, his pack bouncing on his back. The vegetation whispered beneath his feet, and he could imagine it said “Sue, Sue” with every step closer to the barn.

  Just as he was close enough to emerge from the grass and hit the ground in an army crawl for the ages, Hunter almost plowed into a man standing on the edge of the grass.

  Hunter fell to the side just as the guard cocked his head. Hunter circled around to the side, grateful for the wind that kicked up and fluffed the grass, making it sigh.

  The man on duty didn’t know which way to look, and when he cranked his head in the other direction, away from him, Hunter made his move.

  He came from the side, hacked his hand across the man’s windpipe to silence any cries, shoved his gun beneath his left rib cage and pulled the trigger.

  The silencer made a whooshing sound and the man collapsed to the ground, his blood already soaking the dirt. “That’s for Major Denver, you bastard.”

  Hunter searched him for a walkie or cell phone and found the latter. Hopefully, Hunter would be in that building before anyone decided to check with the guard on watch.

  Stashing the dead guard’s weapon in his backpack, Hunter dropped to the ground and crawled toward the barn. He paused next to the van and hitched up to his knees.

  He pressed his ear against the side of the van, which rumbled with the sound of a radio. Damn—someone waited inside. He’d never make it to the barn without being seen.

  He scanned the ground and scraped his fingers through the dirt to collect some pebbles. He tossed these up in the air and they showered down on the top of the van. Then he scrambled beneath the van and held his breath.

  The driver’s door opened and one booted foot landed in the dirt. Another followed, and the driver emerged from the van, facing it, probably trying to see the roof.

  As the man’s boot heels eased up off the ground, Hunter rolled out from beneath the van and bashed the guard in the kneecaps.

  The man gave a strangled cry and swung his weapon down to point it at his surprise attacker. The same look of shock was stamped on his face when Hunter shot him. “That’s for Sue, you bastard.”

  His path now cleared to the barn, Hunter returned to the ground and snaked his way to the building. When he heard the high, clear tones of a child’s voice, his heart lurched.

  He was here. His son was here.

  The barn’s windows were too high to see into and he couldn’t charge through that swinging front door without knowing the situation inside first. He crawled around to the side of the building and swung his pack from his shoulder.

  He rummaged through the contents, feeling each item with his fingers, identifying each gadget from memory. When his fingertip traced around a small, round object encased in plastic packaging, he withdrew it from the backpack.

  This little device could be his eyes inside the barn, give him some situational awareness. He slit the package open with his knife and programmed the spy cam into his phone. He rose, creeping up the side of the barn, and swung his arm at the window above him a few times to judge the distance.

  As long as this didn’t land on someone’s head, he should be able to slip it inside without anyone knowing they were being watched.

  Saying a silent prayer, he tossed
the minicam through the window and into the barn. He held still for several seconds, his muscles taut. No screams, shots or people came from the barn, so he turned to his phone and brought up the app.

  The camera had landed almost against the wall, but it gave him a clear view of a small area encircled by farm equipment—and made his heart ache.

  Sue sat on the floor with Drake, his dark head against her shoulder. Were they allowing her to say goodbye to her son before they tortured and killed her? Would they do the same to Drake?

  A cold dread seeped into his veins as he thought about all the ways they could use Drake to get Sue to talk. But he was here now—watching everything they did.

  Sue and Drake sat on the farthest side away from the door. A woman, he assumed Dani, and a man, who looked like Jeffrey, stood close to the door. They both had weapons, but they hung loosely in their hands. They figured their trusty guards would warn them of any trouble.

  Hunter eyed the van with the dead man next to it, just feet from the front door. The construction of the barn wasn’t very solid, and a heavy vehicle wouldn’t have too much trouble crashing through that door.

  Would Dani and Jeffrey react to the van’s engine starting? Why wouldn’t the guard start the van if he were cold and wanted the heat on? Would Sue realize what it meant? She had to know he had successfully tracked her and was planning her rescue.

  Hunter shook his head and squeezed his eyes closed. Too much second-guessing. Too much indecision. Act. Move. Now.

  He pushed away from the side of the barn and crawled toward the van. He stepped over the dead guy and settled behind the wheel, leaving the driver’s door open. The keys in the ignition jiggled as his knee hit them.

  He held his phone in front of him and propped it on top of the steering wheel. Dani and Jeffrey had their heads together, their guns at their sides. Sue had Drake in her lap. Good. Keep him safe.